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Dessert

Christmas Plum Pudding

A steamed dessert made with raisins, molasses, milk, suet or butter, flour, spices, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Christmas Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine the raisins, molasses, sweet milk, and chopped suet or butter.

  2. In another bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg.

  3. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until well combined.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam the pudding for 3 hours.

  3. Serve with a rich sauce.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the dense pudding together as it steams.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweetness to the pudding.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidity in the molasses to lighten the texture and help it rise.
Suet or butter
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender while it steams.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy moisture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Stirring in the dry ingredients. Adding the dry mixture gradually and stirring only until combined keeps the batter smooth. Overmixing develops gluten in the flour, which can make the pudding tough and dense.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, molasses, milk, butter, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg):

  1. Clovethe original
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, molasses, milk, butter, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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